Laker Airways

Paper Summary:

The paper shows that as the early boom of commercial air travel peaked in the late sixties and early seventies, the cost levied by the most popular and powerful airlines had virtually no standard of limitation. There was little competition in Great Britain for economic command of the air industry and the British Parliament's cozy relationship with British Airways ensured a monopolistic situation in which the consumer was not offered the advantages of a competitive market. The paper explains how this changed for a brief period in 1971 when Freddie Laker, former managing director of British United Airways, unveiled some of the groundbreaking features of his new Laker Airways. The paper discusses Laker's struggle in creating a Skytrain and the methods used by British airline in their attempts to prevent his airline dream of becoming a reality.
ITconcludes with the eventual folding of Laker Airlines in 1982 after it failed to break into the European market.

From the Paper:

"His vision was of a steady service from London to New York with no advanced booking and no frills called Skytrain. The idea was to establish a first-come first-served day-of-departure system. For many years, Laker's innovations stalled in the courts, where the major airlines, who stood to lose the most form Laker's savvy, philanthropic business measures, wrangled to keep the Skytrain dream from lifting off the ground. The cut-rate fares and option laden flight packages that Laker Airways had spearheaded reflected rather poorly on the common practices of other, more bureaucratic and heretofore lucrative air companies. To avoid the exploitation of their flaws as consumer servicemen, as well as to stifle the rise of an able usurper in Freddie Laker, the major airlines united to throw one legal roadblock after another into the pathway of Skytrain and a proliferation of flyers' rights."

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